Opening Night

Neither Strictly Ballroom nor Dancing with the Stars were ever my schooner of beer, but they have a love child. Last night Mrs A. and I attended the opening night of Floor Play. We sat at a table drinking champagne and eyeing celebrities. Glenn A. Baker, with trademark funny hat caught a lift with us, but espoused no musical tidbits in the trip from P1 to the ground floor of Star City. Bronwyn Bishop was a much shorter bloke than I had imagined, and Richard Wilkins looks like Richard Wilkins only taller.

Sorry. I'm not really a name dropper, and not having actually said two words to any of these or the other familiar faces at the event, I just wanted to give you a mental image of the C and D grade celebrities that still stand far higher in the echelons of, well, celebrity than I ever will.

We sat at table C15. About half way between the stage and the back of the room. We chatted, we drank, we waited. Floor Play began.

I see people using their physical abilities every day at work. The human body is a stunning feat of engineering, be it as a fulcrum, a dead weight, a pivot point or a screaming hysterical blob complaining of a bad back. The joint system inherent in our physiology quite frankly shits upon anything we have attempted in mimicry, and last night proved to me how stunningly inefficient man is in copying nature.

The theme for the night centred around a frenzied yet joyous depiction of prohibition clothing mixed with what in general conversation would have been an inappropriate musical score. Yet it came together like a heart beating. And beating at fit to burst with sexual tension and rhythmic hypnotism.

The first dance employed all the hallmarks of a Ricky Martin video with African tribal drums. Moulin Rouge in its day gave punters pantie flashing titillation in nice frocks frowned upon by the tight laced naysayers, but the Latino dancing Empire turned it into art. The men and women on stage flung their sweat with abandon into the baying crowd who watched wrapped in anticipation of Cha Cha, Rumba, Samba, Salsa and Bolero. (these being the only dance names that come to me right now). Then the flappers of the roaring twenties enveloped the stage, followed by ballroom aficionados that ballrooms would blush to contain.

As each piece of choreography denied the beauty of that which came before, the stage contained an eruption of innuendo and timing. Sadly being pregnant, Mrs A. declined the offer of the after party, and I was left to Cha Cha the gear shift all the way home.